


Hero Complex

by FlowerChildAbby



Series: If you fall... [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: All my other projects take themselves too seriously this is just me having fun, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anti-Hero, Body Modification, Cross-Posted on Wattpad, Enemies to Lovers, Found Family, Friends to Enemies, Identity Reveal, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kinda, Magic, Morally Ambiguous Character, Multi, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Not Beta Read, Secret Identity, Self-Harm, Some Cursing, Team Bonding, This is literally just me writing down stuff from my hour long day dreams, anything really bad is just just referenced, as for the violence, but refined, but you won't if you get attached to these characters lmao, one of the characters has to use her blood to heal people, past trauma, people get beat up and there's a bit of blood, so uh sometimes she hurts herself
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29099847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlowerChildAbby/pseuds/FlowerChildAbby
Summary: About 40 years ago people began to mutate, gaining special powers and plunging the world into ruin. In recent years a company simply called "The Complex" has managed to help the mutants integrate into society. Most mutants joined complex of their own free will but some have chosen to fight against it. When a new group of mutants join complex they are tasked with tracking down and capturing a rouge mutant who can control people's minds and erase their memories. While trying to capture the rouge the group end up finding themselves in the middle a conspiracy that challenges their morals and relationships
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: If you fall... [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2210580





	Hero Complex

Evelyn started at a reflection she couldn't call her own. Instead of brown, pale blue eyes stared back at her and her normally straight, long black hair was now wavy, short and white. The person who was looking back at her was named Divinity, a super heroin in training, someone who healed other when hurt and seemed to be the voice of reason. Evelyn wasn't that. A couple years ago Evelyn couldn't heal others, she was training with her fencing team and she sure as hell wasn't a voice of reason. So why was she all those things now? She knew the general answer, she was a mutant, someone with altered genes that gave them strange abilities. The problem was how she became a mutant, it was usually obvious from birth but Evelyn, or should she say Divinity, was an odd ball, someone who mutated later in life and showed no symptoms up until her senior year of high school. That was four years ago, now Divinity was ready to take on her first task as a full fledged member of Complex. Well they thought she was ready, in reality she was terrified. She'd trained with a different group of people but after her training Complex had decided she wouldn't work well with them and assigned her to another group. This was her first time meeting them and the idea had made her skin crawl while her stomach filled with butterflies. With a quick but deep breath, she pushed herself up from her current sitting position and headed out to meet with her new team.

~*~

Sage was a gifted kid. Praised for his educational prowess as a child, Sage always believed that he was naturally good at everything. Now here he was, too nervous to open the door to meet his knew director and team. Sage had never been good at using his power. Maybe it was because he had always lived in thick cities with little access to plants, maybe it was because he was never strong willed. Whatever the reason, it had left him stunted and had left him as the last to be picked for training. Now he was expected to work with a team? He always considered himself a weak link and now everyone was going to know. Sage let out a sigh and let his forehead hit the wall in front of him, various scenarios playing out in his head. A loud cough brought Sage out of his spiral of self doubt. He looked up and noticed a woman awkwardly shuffling around.

"Are you gonna go in?" She asked. Sage felt his face heat up and nodded, opening the door and heading inside.

~*~

Ted tapped fingers against the arm of the chair he was sitting in, he had been the first of his new team to arrive and the director had chosen to sit in silence and do some extra work. Ted had never been good at holding a conversation, he hadn't ever been good with people generally, his social skills were so low that speaking itself was a challenge. Part of Ted wondered if he should ask random questions to the director or if he should just let the man work in peace. Ted wasn't one to take other people's opinions to heart but Complex was different. Most people in training were high schoolers and kids in their early 20s, two groups Ted could not relate too at all. There were a couple other people who were well into their adult years however most of them weren't exactly nice and while Ted could easily tolerate a couple off-handed insults he also knew that he didn't have too, so he didn't. 

The door opening caught Ted's attention and he turned to meet the other people entering the room. The first was a rather young looking man with wild black hair that had various plant's tangled into it. His eyes were a dark green and his face was covered in small cuts and a couple scars. His outfit seemed just as chaotic as his hair, a mix of loose and fitted cloth rested on his body with more plants coiling around his arms and waist. The girl behind him looked a bit more put together, her hair was a stark white and was pretty short for a girl, the bangs pinned back. Her eye's were almost as white as her hair, the scars on her face were a bit more noticeable but she had fewer than the boy. Her outfit was mostly loose and was white as well with a couple blue and yellow accents. The two quickly made their way to their seats, the girl nearly knocking her's over. 

The director looked up from his work and smiled at the small group.

"Welcome, I'm sure you're all excited." The man said, pulling out a folder and flipping through it rather quickly. "I think we should all start off with simple ice breakers since this is your first time meeting. Say your given title and then your ability." Ted cringed, a part of being in Complex meant that the general public got to suggest and vote on titles for the trainees. Complex would remove any names that were jokes or mean but Ted hated the idea of people determining his name, he was an adult, surely he could do that himself? 

"I'm Divinity," The girl said, "I can heal people with my blood." 

"Ever Green, I can control plants." The boy with wild hair responded.

"Conscientiam, I'm able to scan areas and determine anything inside them" Ted told the other two.

"Great!" The director clasped his hand together and closed the folder. "You three have been selected because you were all at the bottom of your training teams." He said taking out another, much thinner folder. "While complex would still be able to find work for you outside of our conventional means, it looks very bad on us and you." He shot a look at Ted who shrunk a bit in his chair. "So you three have been given a simple task, you must capture a rouge from our company, just one person. They wiped most of their information from our system and no one really remembers anything about them due to their quiet nature. They spend most of their time robbing stores." The man pushed the folder forward and Ted got a good look at it. There were only one or two pieces of paper and they were mostly empty. There wasn't a physical description and the only description of their ability was "memory wiping". Most of the document was eye witness accounts which didn't provide much other than "I don't remember how I got here." 

"There's... nothing here." Ever Green said. 

"Again they wiped themselves from our system, and likely our minds as well." The director repeated. 

"So no security camera footage, eye witness accounts from a distance, finger prints? Nothing?" Divinity asked while turning one of the pieces of paper around only to reveal that the back was blank as well. 

The director shook his head "They seem to be very careful about not getting caught." 

"Alright," Ted started, wracking his brain for questions that the detectives he used to work with would ask. "Is there a pattern, are the stores owned by the same company?" He tried. 

"Nope, in fact most of them are independently owned" Ted clicked his tongue, out of ideas already.

"Have they ever hit the same place twice?" Ever Green asked, the director nodded and turned around his monitor to show a store front. Honeydew Sweets the sign read. 

"They seem to hate this place, they ransack it and then leave without taking any cash." The director said. "If you're looking for a place to start it'd probably be there."

~*~

Seeing super heroes leap from building to building in movies seemed ridiculous however it was a relatively quick way to travel, especially when the roads were clogged with traffic. Ever Green felt his stomach drop as he leapt from a high roof to a lower one and while the fall didn't hurt (perks of being a mutant) he still dreaded them. Ever Green turned to look at Conscientiam, he was older than Ever Green and Divinity, which made him slightly nervous. Was there a reason this guy wasn't with another team? Had he been reassigned before? Truth be told, Ever Green had no idea. Conscientiam had very short black hair and wore a mask, he was one of the only people at complex who did. Even with the mask it was obvious that he was on the older side, he was much slower than Divinity and Ever Green, there was a slight rasp in his voice, and there were a few greys in his hair. 

"So what's the plan when we get there?" Divinity asked.

"I say we stake it out, if this rouge attacks often, they'll probably be back." 

So that became their plan, for the first week. Eventually watching a small bakery became rather boring and their next strategy was just to keep frequent tabs on the stores in the area. Sage however didn't want to give up on the bakery. It wasn't hard to get a job there, the couple who owned the place was very sweet and quickly took a liking to the ginger. They were understanding when Sage had to bail last minute, citing a hospitalized family member, they didn't need to know he worked for complex. 

Unfortunately Sage didn't have any real leads yet, their was a rather rude teenager who came in with a small group of friends but they were just rude kids who weren't even good at stealing (Which they attempted rather frequently). His other suspects were the Maryback twins, one of which seemed very adamant about befriending Sage. One of them came in almost every week to pick up some baked goods for his neighbor, the other twin tagging along some times. They were both very friendly and very sweet which made Sage think it was a façade, however he did genuinely like the two which made him dismiss the idea when ever it would worm its way into his head. His other theory was the owner themselves. It was no secret that Honeydew Sweets was failing, Sage saw maybe ten customers a day, twenty max, the place would go out of business if they didn't pull more customers. If Complex was responsible for the rouge they would have to pay for the damages and a little extra as compensation. And to make it worse, the husband would sometimes mention how he knew how to pick locks and when Sage searched his name in Complex's data base he was know for vandalizing some of the companies property and was apparently very open about his dislike of the company on social media.

The director didn't take the theory so seriously, he said that more proof was needed, and that the owner had a great alibi when it came to every other crime committed by the rouge. So Sage waited for an opportunity.

"Sage!" The female owner, Jane, called "We have to head out early could you close up shop for us?" She asked, Sage gave her a smile and a thumbs up. The slight woman smiled back and followed her husband out the door. The ginger was about to get up to do some snooping in the couple's office but the bell on the door caught his attention. A familiar teen walked through the door. 

"Hey Jasmine, where's the rest of the gang?" He asked the girl who glared.

"We are not a 'gang', God you're so old." She muttered 

"I'm two years older than you." The ginger pointed out

"You sure don't act like it." She said, pointing at a box of chocolate cookies on the shelf. 

"$8.99," Sage told the girl who pulled out a wrinkled ten dollar bill. She gave him an odd look.

"You look real sketchy." She pointed out. Sage felt his face heat up, was it that obvious? "Listen man I won't judge, this place isn't gonna last much longer and we all gotta eat." 

"Uh, I appreciate the sentiment? Here's your change." Sage muttered and gave the teen her change and the box. 

The rest of the day was quiet but Sage decided to wait until it was closing time to sneak off, not wanting to get caught by any of the costumers. But eventually the sun was gone and 9 pm rolled around. Sage locked the door and flipped the sign to "closed" and went to head to the couple's apartment above the store. It wasn't hard to get in since the place doubled as the break room and also had the only bathroom in the entire building. The problem Sage quickly realized that the key that let Sage into the apartment did not work on the office. Sage didn't know how to pick a lock but that didn't stop him from trying. A couple YouTube videos and dented paperclips later, Sage realized he wasn't going to be able to get into the office. The ginger felt his forehead hit the door and for a moment his world went dark from the impact, and then it stayed dark. Sage looked around a realized that the power had gone out, shit, the ginger thought as he realized he'd have to go all the way down to the box. A noise caught his attention before he could reach the stairs, Sage looked behind him and saw a figure pulling open the window at the end of the hallway. 

Sage ducked into the bathroom, hoping that who ever was at the window hadn't seen him yet. He pulled out a slick black pen that Complex had given him and pressed the button. If the director was to be believed, the rest of his team would see the alert and know to come help him. Sage heard footsteps pass by him and head down the stairs. He took this as opening, and opened the bathroom door, slowly shifting into his mutant form. Most mutant didn't look human and were able to shift their appearance to that of an average human, of course this left Sage weaker and being in his true form felt much better. As quietly as he could Sage made his way down the stairs and peaked around the corner to find the store completely empty. 

A hand gently cupped his chin and turned Ever Green's face to meet with someone else's. It was hard to see in the dark store but Ever Green seemed to be able to completely make out the face of the person next to him. His skin was dotted with small golden scales and his eyes held the same brilliant gold color.

"You shouldn't be here." The goldened eyed man said. His man's voice made a tingling sensation run up Ever Green's spine, he wanted to melt into the hand gently cupping his face. "Go home, and forget all of this." The man said, removing his hand from the other's face. Ever Green nodded and began to head up the stairs before a loud thud caught both of the men's attention. A rather disheveled looking Divinity appeared at the top of the staircase. Why was she here? Didn't she know that they were supposed to be going home?

Wait, Divinity was here because he'd called her. He was here because he was trying to find the rouge who kept attacking the bakery. That rouge was here right now, right next to him.

Ever Green sprinted up the stairs and pulled the woman away from the steps

"What the hell is going on with you?" Divinity asked.

"I don't have time to explain everything but I think that guy is the rouge." Ever Green rushed. "I looked into his eyes and I think I lost control of my thoughts, like some mind control stuff." Divinity's eyes widened. 

"How are we gonna catch him if we can't look at him?" She asked.

"Conscientiam! He's got a mask he can probably look at him just fine" Ever Green suggested

"Well he better get here quick, we've gotta distract that rouge until Conscientiam gets here." 

The to didn't have a plan, just keep the rouge from doing any real damage until their older team mate arrived. 

The rouge was definitely tearing up the shop, he'd pushed over a couple tables and display stands. He seemed very surprised when he saw Ever Green again, he also seemed slightly annoyed at Divinity's arrival. The two tried to surround him but it was difficult when both of them had to avoid meeting eyes with the rouge who quickly moved away from them. 

"So you two are Complex's new recruits?" The rouge asked, avoiding a tackle from Ever Green. The man seemed very agile despite not being dressed for combat at all, his hair was down and his midsection was completely exposed. He clearly was confident in his ability to dodge, or he just hadn't accounted on people being in the store. "Kinda embarrassed that Almer thought you were good enough to catch me."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Divinity asked, she'd grabbed a thin metal pole from a wall decoration and was spinning it around her hand before she let it rest in her palm. With alarming precision, she swiped the sharp, broken edge across the rouge's arm but it didn't leave more than a thin scratch. The rouge turned his attention to Ever Green who quickly closed his eyes and took a step back only to bump into someone. 

Ever Green turned to see Conscientiam standing behind him, the older man slightly shoved the plant covered teen and cocked his head at the sight of the rouge.

"This is why you called me? Some weirdly dressed blonde?" he asked.

"Consc, that's the rouge..." Ever Green responded. "Listen, you can't look him in the eyes, he has some kind of mind control power." 

"Ehh, yikes," The older man cringed, he pulled a knife from the sheath on his belt and readied it. "We need to get this guy back to complex, I need you to keep distracting him and then I'll knock him out, got it?" Ever Green nodded and went in to tackle the rouge. 

With the full team finally together, it became very apparent that the rouge knew he was in over his head. Sweat was forming along his brow, his movements were starting to get slower and he'd taken more than a couple hits. The blonde made a dash for the door but got shoulder checked by Divinity and fell to the floor. Conscientiam dropped his weight onto the other man, he held the blonde before the older man's body went ridged.

"Guys, there's someone else here." He said, Divinity looked around and Ever Green turned towards the stairs. No one heard or saw anything but Conscientiam kept insisting someone was there, just up the stairs. 

The sound of foot steps suddenly filled the quiet room. The three watched as a masked man, calmly walked down the stairs, twirling a large metal bat around in his hand. Ever Green expected some kind of monologue considering the dramatic entrance, however the man quickly rushed the group and swung the bat at Divinity. The white haired woman held up the metal pole but it was thin and quickly bent due to the force of swing. Divinity crumbled under the man who continued his charge towards Ever Green. The black haired teen tried to catch the bat by forcing the vines around his wrist to grow and catch the bat but all that accomplished was Ever Green getting dragged due to the momentum of the swing. Ever Green stumbled but managed to catch himself, he went to stand up when something slammed his head into the wall. 

Ever Green had felt pain before, he'd trained in what was essentially a military academy, but this was agony. It was like thousands of tiny needles had stabbed his head, and it hurt. His body slid down the wall and all he could do was watch the masked figure rush their last standing team mate who didn't have time to react. 

Ever Green struggled to his feet but by the time he got up the rouge and the masked man had disappeared. Divinity pulled herself up off the floor and let out a groan.

"Did that actually just happen?" She asked. "My head is still fuzzy." 

"That little-" Conscientiam started before he stopped to grip his head in his hands.

"Is anyone hurt?" Ever Green asked before getting an angry look from the other two. "I meant like, a cracked skull or something." He muttered.

"I'll live." Divinity responded and Conscientiam made a noise of agreement. 

With the three finally on their feet Divinity came to a realization.

"He didn't wipe our memories." She said. "We have tons more information about him than we did before." 

Ever Green's head was still ringing but a sense of accomplishment filled his chest. He'd finally managed to do something right.


End file.
